Stray
by Kaitsurinu
Summary: Duo Maxwell has things he's never dreamed of having: an orphanage, money for a home, an extended family. And then there's the thing he wishes he could return and undo completely: Heero Yuy's orphan.
1. Window

Stray

By Kaitsurinu

. Chapter One . Window

Duo could see there was something about him, even standing there, so many feet from the window where he stood pressing his hands to the glass. When he leaned ever so slightly forward, cautiously pressing his nose flat, the sun poured over him. There was even something familiar and unsettling about that. The shape of the light on his dark hair, the way his middle and ring fingers reflexively clung close together when the others spread, the way he lifted his head to gaze further outside. The peculiar way the bottoms of his ears protruded further than the upper rims, the slightly bow-legged angle of his feet, his unfashionable, scuffed sneakers. The last perplexing observation Duo felt he could chalk up to the fact he could have been living on his own, in the streets, for years, but it did not shake the feeling that struck him now. They were tiny imperfections he could have sworn he'd seen on someone else in what seemed another life. It was so long ago, now.

"How did the ride here go?" Duo did not let it affect him when his assistant Michelle walked up to him, holding a clipboard to her long, dark habit.

"Jacob said he was practically a saint. Didn't speak a word," she informed him. She handed him the information sheet and he quickly paged through the paper work, medical records for a glance. "The only real sound he made was when they were giving him his check-up and poking the scope in his ears. But other than that, he's a pretty quiet, calm kid."

"That'd definitely be a break from the ordinary with us."

"I'm not going to complain," she said, folding her arms and tilting her head as she looked at him. She watched him stare intently out the window, another sister sitting beside him on a small bench, behind her a magnificent view of the grassy acres surrounding them. He was breathing on the glass and puffing his lips out. "It would be nice to have a child who could teach the others a little stillness. I just hope he'll get along with the others. He still might be a little shy."

She continued to watch him and a gentle smile crossed her face. Duo glanced over at her, then followed her eyes back to the intriguing little silhouette, barely higher than his knee. She did not seem him the same way he did—with a lump of dread. She could not feel an eerie sense of knowledge and intimacy with a tiny orphan she'd never seen before in her life.

Or if she did, she was hiding it well.

"I'm sure they'll welcome him. Heaven knows they always could use a new playmate," Duo said. "But he didn't have a name?"

The corner of Michelle's mouth slung backwards, cocking an eyebrow. "Not that he would tell any of us, but I think he does. He gives you a strange look whenever you ask him, like he wouldn't even if you offered him candy for it. I don't know. It could be something he picked up from being on his own for so long." She looked at the child, then turned to Duo again. "Cynthia Williams was the woman who called us last week. Said he'd been sneaking into her garage early in the mornings for at least a month, and she thought she'd seen him ghosting around for nearly four weeks before that."

"Alone?"

"Yep."

The gold light of the afternoon light was gleaming in the kid's hair, which was littered with cowlicks and untamable tufts jutting out, hanging down in his face, which was still raptly set on the window. The color was a dusty brown, though the underlying color was something deeper still, and the sunlight set it ablaze, almost blonde. It was thick and tousled, and Duo had a feeling that even after they had thoroughly washed and brushed it, it would remain just as unruly.

The sleeves of the oversized coat he wore slid down to his elbows as he lifted his hands, revealing his slight frame and bony wrists. He stuck them to the glass and leaned forward on his toes, bending like a reed. His mouth found the glass again and a lopsided cloud of mist appeared.

"He can't be more than four or five. What took so long for someone to report this kid? I mean, doesn't anybody notice a near-toddler outside, without any kind of supervision?"

"I guess not. She said that she barely saw him during the day, though. Always at night—picking through garbage, sleeping in unlocked cars, flowerbeds."

"Yeah," Duo said. "You never want anyone to see you in the daylight. Makes the shame worse."

Michelle's composure didn't falter. She just glanced at Duo.

He shifted a fraction away from the protective gesture, turned the pages and tried to make the words printed there register in his mind, but his attention was fixated in another place, and something thick was forming in his throat. He was sure now what color the child's eyes would be when he turned around.

"He tested negative for R95 and R89, MMR, Rooter's Syndrome, and New Space Sickness. He's an awfully healthy kid, for living where he has been. L-1 has been suffering a lot of outbreaks of new diseases in children in the last few years," he said. "The only way he'd be show resistance to all these is if he had already contracted them, which, if he had, he'd most likely be dead, or if he's already been vaccinated against them."

"He couldn't have been out on the streets much longer than a few months, then. Someone had to be taking care of him up that point. Well, taking care of him enough to at least get his basic vaccinations," Duo said, tilting his head ever so slightly. The child was arching his neck, shifting his gaze, turning his face ever so closer to Duo's eyes. Something twisted in his gut. Hard.

But he couldn't jump to a conclusion. It was no use. He cleared his throat a little to cover up the flinch and slipped into an even voice. "And no word about parents or a caretaker?"

"No. I'm sure he must have had one though. He says he has a name, but he just won't tell us." She let out a sigh and simply lifted her eyebrows at it. "Maybe he'll feel comfortable enough soon. He seems rather hesitant to talk about his past."

"Well, the sooner we have a name, the sooner we have a possibility of finding that caretaker and returning him to that person," Duo said firmly. "It doesn't mean we have to tiptoe around him."

Michelle looked away from the child and up at her supervisor, with something like surprise etched into her expression. A curious sound escaped her. "That doesn't sound like you, Duo."

He startled a little (the child had been lifting his measly weight onto his tiptoes, and he had been prisoner to watch every moment) and his head jerked around to look at her. A pang of fear formed, cold, in his stomach to match the corner of a scowl that appeared. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The sister shook her head slightly as her mouth opened. "I mean, you said yourself to never judge a kid based on his needs. We accept them all and we'll do what it takes to help give them a new start," she said, hurrying through the latter words since she had heard and reiterated them so many times. "It just didn't seem like you to say something like that."

A slight color filled Duo and a line appeared between his brows. He quickly tore his eyes from Michelle's to glance needlessly down at the paperwork again, making as if he were intently scanning over some new bit of information. He knew it didn't fool her, but he couldn't help it. He couldn't look at her and mutter what he did a moment later. "He just unnerves me, that's all."

He tried to reach out and hand her the clipboard of papers in an attempt to appear more casual, but she smiled and told him it was a copy and it was for him to keep.

"And how about our new child? Aren't we going to go and actually meet him?"

Duo did not want to. Suddenly, there was a terror about that distance separating them and the idea of closing the gap only to find something terrible waiting for him. Something he knew was going to be true, had to be true, was already true, no matter how much he avoiding looking at that familiar miniature face, and couldn't stand to accept. It was waiting over there for him at the window and now it looked up to the other sister as she stood up beside the child and tried to pat down some of his disheveled hair.

A visible flinch ran through his tiny frame, he threw his hands onto his head, and bent his knees, trying to escape the touch. But then, after a moment, as if realizing his instinct had gotten the better of him and he was being rude, he begrudgingly let her hand attempt and comb through his hair. Duo prayed that the child would not suddenly catch a glimpse of something in the corner of his eye and turn towards it, see something in the corner of eyes that were going to be murderously blue and ambiguously shaped. Almost almond, but open and keen.

It was then he decided that his beeper was alerting him of an urgent call in his office on the other side of the building and must immediately catch it.

---

Duo Maxwell sat in his office for a very long time not doing anything, eyes glazed, body tensed but motionless, and stared at the wall just to the side of the door. It took him a few minutes before he could coax himself out of the corridors of his mind and into doing anything at all. Drawing himself out of his deep and treacherous memory vaults, he looked up to the door, watching the glass windows around it for a sign of life, of anyone walking by. There was none. So he reached for his bottom right drawer and opened it for the first time in a long time.

On his desk were picture frames that were empty, yet to be filled, except for that of him and Michelle standing outside the working shell of what would become their orphanage in the months of long, hard work. She was beaming and holding the doorknob that had come off in her hand, looking more than ready to tackle the challenge before her. He was standing at her side, resisting a laugh. Both were so doused in enthusiasm, he swore he could see them glow in it.

But right now he hated being in this place. It was abruptly and thoroughly the last place he wanted to be right now because there was a child, no doubt holding Michelle's hand as they walked the halls, looking at the finger-painted pictures on the wall, who had a face he shouldn't have.

It was one that Duo didn't have to find in his drawer to see perfectly in his mind.

He pushed the folder of deeds and land assessments from so long ago out of the way, followed by old contractor estimates and bank account information. More manila folders followed, stuffed with stored away ideas and words. Old handbooks and manuals to things that had long been thrown out or given away; half-full notebooks with numbers and memos and chicken-scratch notes from years ago; letters from long-ago adopted children. But it was the book at the very bottom that he searched for. It held something even older, more private and far more precious.

Shutting the drawer, he placed the King James Bible on his lap and it fell open to the middle of the book of Joshua. Several photos lay there, bristling up from the seam.

They were hidden, safe, and as long as they stayed that way, Duo could keep a professional distance from the now distant pains they could inadvertently stir up without losing them completely. At least, that's what he coached himself to believe. The corners on each were bent, the edges built-up with fingerprints, but they were all Duo had left in the physical world from his past. Deathscythe was destroyed, all his weapons sold off to profit the orphanage, and beat-up clothes given away. Only the pictures remained, and a little gold crucifix around his neck.

He leaned back into his chair and picked up the first one. He let loose a smile automatically as he looked down at Quatre and Trowa standing just inside a familiar circus tent, Quatre turning his head to glance back at the camera that had surprised them, standing and talking as comfortably as they always did. There was a bemusement in Trowa's face that made Duo suspect it was Cathy snapping the picture. And there was a twist in Quatre's innocent look that Duo suspected was a little bit of surprise and regret that they were no longer alone together.

He chuckled and slipped that photo to the back of the pile, bringing up the second one, an image of his mobile suit from OZ's database. The dark, metallic wings were stretched wide, arms arched back, boiling green knifing through the hoard of dolls surrounding it. He may have finally gotten the courage to hit the self-destruct button and obliviate such an important participant in his life, but he still couldn't get over the fact he'd had the best-looking mobile suit of the bunch and it would be a waste not to keep at least one picture of it. The smile on his face grew into a grin at this and he lingered a moment longer before flipping to the next photograph.

Howard, in another of his ridiculously colored Hawaiian shirts, throwing a spindly elbow around Duo's neck while Duo held at his arm, squinting and grinning. A few other Sweepers were loosely gathered in the backgrounds—the ones willing enough and not slathered in black grease, that is. He brought the photo closer to scrutinize his younger self. "God, I'm never going to get any less scrawny, am I?" he muttered. And in a moment of carefree nostalgia, he added, "'Course, I'll never be like Heero was back then."

And then he felt the cold twisting pain return. Duo flipped over the final photograph, emphatically wishing he hadn't said that name as his eyes fell on the glossy paper torn from a yearbook.

It made the separation heavier.

"Duo?" There was a knock at the door.

Duo startled straight up in his chair, quickly slapping the photos down into his lap, out of sight. He felt his heart going up into his throat and embarrassed that his senses were slipping. His red-haired assistant stood at the door with a stance that told him she'd been there for a while.

"Michelle," he managed out without breathing too heavily. "What's up?"

"Why are you afraid of this kid, Duo?" she asked, stepping inside. Somehow the smirking smile didn't comfort him, though she didn't mean any harm through it. "It's a little strange to see a grown man sulking around his office just because he's afraid of a little orphan."

Somehow Duo didn't appreciate the cold twisting movement his stomach made at the thought that she could see a fear he was so terribly trying to hide. Or how he used the word 'fear' himself. It made the reality thicker, the separation heavier.

"I'm not afraid of an orphan," he said. "I'm afraid of that kid—I mean, he just unnerves me, is all. And besides, I'm not sulking around, I've been working, I'll have you know."

She found that hard to believe and it translated into her grin opening wide. "On staring into your book? Maybe you would make more progress if you turned the page."

He moved the pictures into the safety of the pages and gently shut the covers around them, still not lifting his eyes from her face as he tried to corral his expression. It was becoming harder in his old age, and he had not noticed just how much so. With a shake of his head and an injected smile, he chuckled, making it a sheepish one, and stood up. "When you're right, you're right, 'chelle." He pulled the drawer open and placed the Bible safely inside. "I've probably been working in here a little too long anyway. The stale air's getting to me. So let's go properly meet our newest child."

She had not been expecting such a cooperative Duo on this matter. "But I thought you were terrified of this four year old," she said as he met her at the door. "You turned nearly white as a sheet when you saw him, you know."

Duo didn't fake the grimacing smirk. "Did I?"

Michelle laughed and began to walk down the corridor. Duo closed the door and followed her with feet that were terrible weights to move and a stricken mind but a duty and a blind compulsion that told him it was what had to be done. It was a voice that sounded a little too familiar to him. It only made his dread thicken as he walked, picturing the words coming from a picture that belonged a book in his locked drawer and not haunting the front of his mind.


	2. Child

. Chapter Two . Child

The Maxwell Home was opened in the Central District of L-2 six years after the end of the Earth Sphere War as it had come to be known in posterity. Duo would have much preferred to not give such a malicious and devastating curse of an event a name and rather just learn from the horrible experiences and never make the same mistakes again. But most of humanity had been more than happy to risk repetition of history at the cost of lives, innocent and otherwise, and simply buried the pains that bothered them. If it was human nature to do so, then Duo thanked whatever Devil manipulated his fate that he had torn that piece of humanity out of him through trial and tribulation. No, that was a tame word to use—Hell was more appropriate.

He may have died thousands of times over in that cockpit and he may never again feel totally comfortable in the normal flow of life, but as long as he lived, he would not let such an incident repeat, and there were six other people who shared his unique circumstances and felt exactly as he did. The Gundam Pilots, Noin, and Zechs.

Well, that wasn't completely accurate. Seven, counting Relena.

After the war, which Duo doggedly called nothing more than that, he went back to the only home he'd ever known. L-2 had not necessarily been the warmest welcome in the past, but it was all he knew. And after going through Hell kicking and screaming, he wanted familiarity, no matter how terrible it had been before. There was nothing worse than drifting, utterly alone. And even though his past was riddled and at times unbearable to relive even in faint memories, he would do his damnedest to honor it.

After a few years of making ends meet with salvage with Hilde, things had come to a halt. There simply was too little business to survive on it. Relena, being just as adept as one particular pilot had believed her to be, enacted the strict banishment of any sorts of mobile suit with weapons grade abilities, greatly restricted and supervised the smelting of all Gundanium alloy, raised stark taxes on the manufacturing, transportation, and trading of mechanized equipment larger than five meters, formally allied and supported the Preventers, organized judicial courts to strictly deal with Mobile Suit Edict infractions, and taken up overwhelming owning stock in former manufacturing companies at the expense of the Peacecraft and OZ bank accounts, and all of this within three months of the end of the war and gaining political clout.

She was far from the child he had seen, sitting innocently in her prep uniform and eyeing the boy who sat beside him, waiting to corner him outside just to see him. And Duo thoroughly enjoyed that change. It was the next best thing to actually having a Gundam Pilot in power—though Relena insisted on mentioning almost each and every one of them in her sweeping orations. All in all, it was a slightly irritating but flattering vice. Duo knew life's troubles could always be worse than repeated, embarrassing compliments—always.

And in the Sixth year of Peace, excluding the failed coup d'état on Christmas in the First, she caught wind of Duo's plans to build a memorial orphanage in the Central District where the Maxwell Church had burned to the ground. At that point, the furthest planning done had been Duo lying down on his couch, tossing a baseball up in the air to keep his mind focused, discussing the possibility with Hilde as she sipped some coffee. When asked about the mysterious leak, Hilde had declined to give him any more insightful information than to say she had "many ears in many places." And through that transaction of words through old wartime friends, most likely by Duo's own videophone only minutes after he'd fallen asleep that night, the Maxwell Home Project was born, already financed and monetarily sound for the rest of its life.

Relena had pulled out all the stops when the idea came to her attention. Duo was honestly surprised at her dedication to his minor cause. She had much, much bigger fish to fry and L-2 had never garnered much political support, and often came under fire and threat of destruction from health inspectors. Those claims never saw realization solely because without L-2 there would be no place to keep the unwanted immigrants and colonists. Among the colonies, it was always in the worse need of repair and the last to receive some if any at all. There were bigger issues, the politicians said, to be tended to. And during the wars, that may have been true.

But under Relena's careful watch, it was irrelevant.

She contacted Duo the next day, and he arranged a meeting in L-2's worst slum, Dark Water, where drinking water back in the day had been infused with invisible run-off from thermal energy testing. Duo had spent a few days there, writhing in agony as the toxins gave him the worse routing he'd ever felt, before Solo found him and taught him the hazards of colony life. It was something he found himself surprised to tell her—he'd told no one about Solo save for Father Maxwell and Sister Helen—but she had turned her head to him for a moment, not staring piercingly into the wreckage, desolation, and dirty children surrounding them. She had been wearing a white shirt and blue jeans that were dirty at bottom. Average clothes—colonist clothes. And she had seen something in his eyes that made her smile. And she swore it again, to help him however she could.

Then she hugged him.

Duo never forgot it. And on bad days, he would stop and picture the gleam of her eyes when she had pulled away, still holding his shoulders tightly. She was not a child, but she was young in the way the world needed. And she did help him. She gave him the means to build his orphanage and slowly begin reconciling his past and protecting the future from repeat Duos. She was the Pilot without a Suit, as far as he was concerned, for all that she'd learn to put before herself, but she was brighter, purer than they could ever be. Duo would die for her from that moment on.

Now he understood why he had protected her so fiercely, why he had gone after her time and time again, why he would stand at Peacemillion's observation decks and stare into the stars with her name in his eyes. And here he thought it had been _love_.

Quatre, however, not to be outdone upon hearing of Relena's generous donation, poured a substantial chunk of his time, energy, and money into the renovation of L-2. Quatre had not called Duo for a meeting, though. He showed up at the front door and threw Duo into a bear hug upon opening it. Needless to say, Duo was more than happy to see him, even if he hadn't yet combed his hair or even had his coffee that morning in the face of the blond's perfect grooming. Eventually, Quatre drew the conversation away from catching up and jokes and pledged his support. And days later, through the same contractor that was building the Maxwell Church, he announced the beginning of a rebuilding, sanitation, and improvement project of LaGrange Point Two. And, the company being based solely out of L-2, it brought an influx of jobs that had been sorely needed for twenty-five years.

So life was good.

The Maxwell Home was coming up on its third anniversary in a few months. There was always construction in the works, and potential employees to be interviewed and oriented. Cooks and assistants, a nurse, psychologist, and tutors. Thanks to Relena's funds and the never-ending existence of orphans in L-2 and the surrounding satellites, they were always growing. Currently, they maintained the same three-acre plot for the building, and an additional two and a half acres of recreational area, but Cartier and Son Contractors were already looking into the area around the central campus for more classrooms, a dormitory, and nearby housing for the older orphans who were either unable to be placed or were nearing legal age and needed to learn the responsibility of independent living. They were quickly becoming the leading facility among the colonies and soon had growing numbers of children from L-1 and L-3.

Duo had also requested information about the possibility of building a small chapel on the grounds. Michelle would love that. Should it actually work out, he was going to surprise her with the plans on the next anniversary.

Duo's closest assistant and confidante had come from St. Michael's Parish, a church that had been founded by one of Father Maxwell's close friends in Seminary. It was clear on the other side of L-2, a more polished side of an otherwise gritty place. That was where the relatively few money-holding citizens gathered, away from the ordinary people, fondly known as the Grime.

Michelle came to Duo four weeks after construction had started. Relena had been firm in rejecting Duo's pleas and made a completely thorough media presentation of the building, thrusting him and his project firmly into the spotlight. Michelle had seen him on the news one night, trying his best not to act nervously in front of the camera and rattle on, and called him immediately afterward. Duo had been slouched at his counter, sulking as he shoved ice cream into his mouth, while Hilde was intently watching and taping it off the news, and very grateful for the distraction.

Speaking of which, he sorely needed one right now. They were walking down the corridor that lead from the offices and file-keeping rooms—the boring adult stuff, Duo often told the kids—and into the first atrium where kids were often seen sitting watching movies, reading, hanging out on their free hours. It was an enormous room to Duo, who had often slept in the impossibly fractional spaces between buildings, with two couches, bean bag chairs, five tables for playing cards, drawing, and writing, an electronic billiard table that only answered to children who were doing all their schoolwork, a television, a stuffed toy corner for the younger kids, a giant shelf of books, and a coloring and paint station. And that was where most of their young charges were now, mid-afternoon, with classes done for the weekend.

The corridor leading there was on the outer edge of the building, so the windows looked out into the metallic landscape of L-2, giving a good view of the curve of the Colony. On the other side, though, it was large glass panels gazing out into a small garden Michelle and a few other workers had started, and now was overtaken by the older kids. Ivy-doused walls surrounded it, one looking into the Big Room, and the others looking into offices and other corridors.

Duo watched the rows of tomatoes and onions and rhubarb for as long as he could before he stepped out into the Big Room.

It was silly for an adult to cower before a tiny orphan, but the fear was there no matter how forcefully Duo tried to coax it away from his mind with more important thoughts. It seemed only to react to these attempts by digging deeper, striking closer to much more tender memories and vulnerable spots. Duo swallowed around a lump and his eyes fell true on the new addition.

He was the only one at the bookshelves. Most of the children were currently wrapped up in an afternoon movie, lying scattered around a few couches, bean bag chairs, and a few of the younger ones huddled around the television in a group, sitting on the laps of the older ones. They took little notice to Duo or Michelle. They were always darting in and out, here and there, stopping to play Go Fish and Colony Shuttles, a game that Duo had known as Leap Frog, and the movie was getting good, so their presence garnered little attention.

Duo hadn't ordered his feet to move, but he couldn't very well resist it without looking a fool, bolting wildly to avoid seeing the face of a four-year-old.

Michelle reached him first seeing as she had no reservations to taint her will and knelt down to his level. He was pretending to be raptly gazing into a page of Aesop's Fables, a book that was thicker than the arms that supported it, ruffled head bowed. Duo could see a cautious tension run taut and fast up the child's back, squaring his shoulders the tiniest bit. It was familiar. An echo of a louder memory.

Michelle looked up at him, giving him a knowing, sharp glance, and he crouched down as well.

"Hello, there," she said gently.

Duo felt his throat knot tight when the frail-looking four-year-old turned around to look at them and his eyes were blue.

He glanced at Duo, then back to Michelle. He did it once more, but lingered on Duo's face longer, before he lowered his chin and pulled out a quiet voice. "Hello."

"Hi," Michelle cooed. She looked delighted to get even that tiny word out of him. "My name is Michelle, and this is my friend Duo. We're going to take care of you until we can find your Mom and Dad, okay, sweetheart?"

He looked at Duo at the mention of his name so intently and with eyes so blazingly blue that Duo thought he could see something like recognition in them. But he said nothing.

Michelle gently touched her hand to his back in a reassuring gesture meant only to coax him out of his insecurity. So many of the children who came to need the Maxwell Home needed much more than just shelter and hot meals, and Michelle took each one into her heart and consideration, knowing she would probably never have ones of her own. Sometimes he envied her motherly touch, but the thought of touching this rail-thin boy, even ruffling that disheveled dark hair, intimidated him.

"Can you tell me what your name is?"

Finally, he tore his gaze away from Duo and clutched the book close to him in a self-conscious motion. He gazed into Michelle's warm face with a timid expression, and shook his head. "Don't wanna," he muttered. "Taken."

Michelle smiled and gently laughed at that, reaching forward and using both hands to touch him. Duo couldn't help but notice the tension that first met her contact, then melted into a more vulnerable position, almost swaying into that motherly energy. And attached to that face, those eyes of déja vu color, it was an odd image.

"Oh, honey, that's alright. Lots of people share their names with someone else. It's nothing to be ashamed of," she told him, reaching up to push a lock of hair out of his face. He could have told her that it was just going to fall back in a stubborn streak. "I share mine with many other people, you know."

"But Otousan said mine was special," he answered, looking almost distraught at the idea. He glanced over at Duo again. This time, the former pilot thought, it was a reflex of anxiety and fear.

Funny, he thought. I feel exactly the same way.

Michelle smiled and cooed. "It is. I know it is, because special boys deserve very special names. Would you like to tell me what it is? I'd really like to know."

Again, he shook his head.

"That's alright, sweetheart. Maybe later, hm? When you're ready?"

This time he answered with a nod. He was still clutching the thick book to his chest. Duo wondered honestly if he could read such a thing already, but the dark comprehension in him said yes, he could—being a descendent from whom Duo knew he must. A fresh wave of nausea hit him at the thought of his intuition being right about this. Terribly blue eyes set upon him again, and the orphan seemed almost to stare straight through to his soul for a moment. And then he shyly bowed his head and sat down in a tiny red chair with his book.

Michelle smiled and reached for a book as well. It was not until she'd swept her habit neatly beneath her, in order to sit properly in the child-sized chair next to their new addition, that she registered that Duo was gone. She sat bolt upright in the tiny chair, glancing around the room. It was as if he hadn't even been there, moments ago. She had heard tell of about the former Gundam Pilots and their mysterious and often mythical abilities, but Duo had never shown such behavior. He was so modest and normal—she could not put his face to some of the horrific hearsay that still haunted them, even in the Sixth Year of Peace.

She now realized if he didn't want her to know that he was leaving, then she wouldn't.


	3. Names

. Chapter Three . Names

"I can't believe I'm actually doing this," Duo muttered to himself as he sat down on his bed, cradling his laptop computer on his folded legs. He hadn't hacked so much as a cell phone in years—much less an information mainframe. Granted, he had no difficulties in doing so, but still. Certain terrorist tendencies lingered longer than others.

For a moment, the idea of Michelle's reaction haunted him, but it was simply immoral, not illegal to surf obituary records without prior permission. He found it somewhat relaxing to let his mind focus on the expression the sister would bare should she ever find out Duo still regressed to some of his terrorist ways—that he still drank and occasionally had a smoke when the day called for it. It was better than addressing the anxiety that had driven him to his home in the middle of the day, behind his locked bedroom door, pulling up L-1's obituary database. He adjusted the screen as a long white page appeared, punctuated by nothing more than a long list of names and dates.

Though he was skeptical the child's father could have died only yesterday, he began at the very top of the list with the newest additions. He didn't want to make a mistake in this. Beginning with the day's date, Duo began picking through time and intently reading each account of death before moving onto the next ones. It wasn't until he had exhausted his eyes on the glowing screen and was currently in the middle of the Earth Sphere War, AC 196, did he finally put the anxious name chase to rest.

Nothing.

That was neither good nor bad. In truth, he had no possible way of knowing if Heero Yuy was irrefutably dead from nothing more than a database of names. He was rarely "himself" and very rarely ever really dead.

Duo grimaced to himself, feeling his anxiety and waiting terror push through in a nervous laugh. "Well, I am Death—I should know."

But there was always that possibility.

A few more terrible thoughts were waiting to be uncovered and cowered before, but Duo jumped at the sound of a knock on his bedroom door before they could seize their chance. He slammed the laptop shut out of automatic response and turned to stare at the door. Hilde's voice peeped out from the other side, colored with an ambiguous tone. "Duo?"

"Yeah? Come in," he said.

She opened the door and her innocent face poked inside, leaning against the door. "Hey, you," she said. "How come you're home so early?"

"I—" He began, meaning to explain that he'd come down with something, but knew that was a lie. And Hilde didn't deserve even the slightest dishonesty. "I didn't feel up to it today," he amended, smiling apologetically. "You know. Just one of those days. So I left a little early. That's all."

"Oh." She straightened up with concern and stepped completely across the threshold into his rather cluttered room. "You're not feeling sick or anything, are you?"

"Not exactly," Duo muttered. He turned back and looked down at his laptop, which had suddenly seemed to grow a pair of prying eyes, chiding at his evasion of the truth.

"What, troublesome kids today?"

"Especially today." That he could say with complete and utter conviction.

Hilde glanced down at the green display of his clock lying in a strewn pile of Time Magazines and old notebooks on the bed stand, then back at him, her arms sitting akimbo on her hips. She was wearing her favorite raspberry-colored beret. That meant only one thing these days. "Well, if you're feeling up to it," she asked, "maybe you'd want to come and help me with a odd job I picked up, fixing the neighbor's motor. They've been having trouble starting it, and it rasps and bangs when they finally do."

Duo paused and let the smile blossom slowly over his face.

"What?"

"You had a date today, didn't you?" he drawled slyly, dipping into a more youthful corner of his heart that seemed much further a reach than it had this morning.

"No, I didn't," she lied. "And even in the event that I had, I wouldn't tell you." The smile through her statement betrayed every word, and she knew that Duo saw through it like cellophane. "And you're just avoiding answering my question. Would you like to help fix the Rathburns' car, or do you need to stay in here all day to cope with the terrors of your day?"

"I'm not as delicate as that," he drawled at her, sliding the laptop off his knees and leaving it on the rumpled mass of sheets and blankets. An automatic and flawless cut of laughter and flash of a grin put away whatever concern Hilde might have truly had about him, and put any conjecture of real distress even further from her mind as he followed her out of the door. She fell for the classic Maxwell Demon smile, hook, line, and sinker, and was no wiser to the fall. She couldn't see what he wouldn't let her.

He was honestly afraid of something he couldn't prove or disprove—and that drove him to the ends of his mind.

Time seemed to take leaps and bounds whenever Duo found himself covered in greasy Dalmatian spots and elbow deep into an engine, watching the complicated lines of machinery and prying answers from him. And having Hilde next to him, in her ratty work coveralls, simultaneously switching the conversation from the ailing car of which they were weaving in and out like snakes to the next movie they should catch on a Saturday night to what she'd managed to overhear in the grocery store. It comforted him with its familiarity and safety.

The car had a number of minor problems, but the engine had just seen too many rush hours and traveled too much blacktop on too little oil to be reasonably salvageable. The Rathburn couple, both retired in the past few years, wandered in and out with lemonade and friendly conversation. Duo had to apologize when he'd left grease prints all over Mrs. Rathburn's cute little glasses decorated with apples and peaches, but for the moment it was the only worry. He also felt a little guilty, having received such hospitable treatment and then being forced to admit it was not an issue of fixing—it was an old car, and the engine had been spent.

The Rathburns had protested and told him it was no big deal in that sweet and unobtrusive way Duo almost couldn't stand. It made him feel even guiltier to have failed them. But, as did almost all-gracious people in such a situation, they enthusiastically waved it off and tried to dismiss his guilt. Hilde made some comment about Duo and being so unselfish that made the sweet couple laugh, but Duo couldn't remember what it had been when he was later lying on his bed. In fact, he had barely remembered leaving, offering to spring for a new engine, or help finance a new automobile in futility, or going back and washing up. It became a blur, then simply a benign gap in his memory.

Duo sighed, feeling the emotions of that morning ghosting just below his thoughts and threatening to push out, and rolled onto his side to try and postpone them. It was temporary, but it gave him enough time to turn on the television and vanquish them for at least another half-hour situation comedy.

The characters moved in their syndicated dance back and forth from the couch. Their momentary crises unfolded and then swung back into resolution neatly between commercial breaks. He winced at the lips that met between the main character and his pretty girlfriend and changed the channel. It was over before Duo had properly escaped the world, but there was another to follow and keep him unaware of reality. Hilde strode into his room, navigated between the piles of clean and dirty clothes, of which only Duo knew the true state, and presented him with a little sundae. It was identical to hers, except for the pink sprinkles on her chocolate syrup.

She told him he looked kind of tired, in explanation of the ice cream. Those words came like a rousing bugle and Duo gave in to his defenses. He sat up with a bounce he didn't feel like doing, cracking a smile that was more reflexive than a knee-jerk, and let his outer exterior handle it. The inner mind was exhausted, and even a sundae with vanilla and chocolate and caramel and a cherry on top wasn't going to fix that.

---

He was on Peacemillion. Beneath the lights, he could see the black and white squares of war of the chess board, could see the lines of logic running through Trowa's visible eye, could see the ever subtle Quatre smiling gently at him if he glanced up to watch. The lean and silent figure of Wufei reclined against the wall somewhere in the distance, nothing more than an indistinguishable blur in the background. As much as he squinted, Duo found his eyes unable to focus on him properly. Seeming to sense some unwanted attention, his dark-haired form turned and faded.

Duo frowned, troubled by the knot such an action formed in his stomach, then glanced down to the black chess pieces scattered in front of him. All his captured knights, rooks, and bishops lay in a terrible chipped mess over the table, black marble scattered to the edges of Duo's filmy vision.

---

To make up for his uncharacteristic absenteeism the day before, Duo trudged into his office at the home at the unholy crack of dawn the next morning. Partly because the weekly supply checkup was due, bills would begin amassing on his desk in the next few days, and all the batteries in the fire alarms were scheduled for a change and partly because he refused to fall back asleep. There were always things to adjust, to watch, to repair. And when the amount of work exceeded the number of workers on staff, the brunt of the weight fell to him. Of course, he wouldn't have it any other way, but he sometimes wished he would anyway.

He turned on the lights and for a minute, surveyed the office. Old habit. He had to suppress a scoff as he noticed what Michelle had left on his desk. Throwing his jacket into the chair by the door, he shook his head with a half-smile as he picked up the book, lifting it over the frames on his desk. "Facing Your Fears," he read. Inside, she'd written the words 'Children' on a piece of paper and slipped it in. "Hilarious." He squared it away in the top drawer, on top of other unread materials still to be tended to, an endless chain of tasks, one to be seen to after another.

With a vigor towards menial tasks he'd never felt before, Duo set himself resolutely in his chair, pulled the entire pile of files needing of updates out of the drawer, and set them on the desk before him with a certain feeling of self-punishment.

An hour later, Duo found himself blankly staring the bottom tip of the pen as it moved independently of his mind, scribbling across the page. Honestly, he felt as though he hadn't written any of the last thirty appraisals, only numbly watched the writing utensil and his hand work ahead without him. It was a hazy feeling most often reserved for those days that never became nights, just bled into the morning, submerged in work that was done before he could realize he'd been doing it.

More than happy to submit to the impulse and bury his mind and hopefully silence it, he was only jarred out of his comfortable numbness when a blur of energy and giggles dashed by the door of his office, quickly pursued by an employee. Duo waited, his pen stilled, until the new employee Marcus walked back past his open door, holding Cinderblock squirming in his arms, probably the most energetic orphan of his age ever to live, and also the poorest choice of a name. Mark smiled sheepishly and greeted him as he passed. " 'Morning, Duo," he said over Cinderblock's frantic squeals.

"Don't let him get the best of you, Mark," he answered, and was rewarded with a tired laugh.

"I'll try," Mark said, his voice fading off with his figure. "Alright, let's eat some breakfast, Cind, okay…?"

Duo smiled halfway to himself as they disappeared and rubbed the side of his head absently, the other hand coming around to grip the pen once again. It took him a moment to readjust, sliding amusement aside to come to the task at hand. But before he could scratch out the end of another sentence, he was quickly plunged back into memory, remembering all the grungy, back alley names he'd considered himself before settling on Duo when Solo had died.

Thief, of course, had been wildly popular among the ragtag kids, but he'd never wanted to choose to be average and refused it. He'd considered Pick, short for Pickpocket, Wrench, Streetlamp, and Fox, as Solo sometimes like to declare him, though Duo had not really understood what it meant at the time. For so long, his most pressing worry had been the selection of a name. Under Solo's watch, food was frequent enough to lose sight of a few ribs to your skin. And though it was still discolored through malnutrition, for once in a great while Duo had enjoyed living in it.

But, the past was the past, and paperwork was the detestable but inevitable present. Duo regrouped around the pen, pushing all the memories into the sidelines of his mind, and prepared to finish the sentence he'd started nearly three minutes ago.

It was only by repetition that he thought to glance up and inspect his surroundings. Being birthed in the hot artillery fire and cold nights of war had installed it in him, and he glanced up momentarily to see Heero Yuy staring back at him from behind the glass of the door. The pen fell out of his fingers and his legs shot him out of his seat.

Unfortunately, by then, he had come to realize it was only his eyes, and the rest of the figure was the nameless orphan, his small hands spread as far as they would stretch against the glass, his fingertips white. His eyes grew wide and his body twitched. He seemed not to want Duo's attention, and as soon as he bolted out his chair, he bolted off himself into the corridors.

When his footsteps echoed out of range, he put his head back to the papers in front of him, and sighed deeply before collapsing into the circle of his folded arms.

"I am getting too old for this shit…"


	4. Warmth

. Chapter Four . Warmth

So he dreamed again. Not the usual, milky, harmless plots of normal nights, but war dreams—things that hadn't taunted him for years.

They arrived casually, like an old friend stopping by since he 'was in the neighborhood.' But they remained viciously, and that friend grinned wickedly and quickly went to tearing down all his stability from within. It did not really matter what he dreamt—what body slowly bled and fertilized the dirt before him, how many innocents he saw fall at the bite of a bullet, or even how long he could hear himself scream in his sleep. The fact these devils had discovered where he had once slept with no remorse worried him more. They knew where he laid down for the night, tender, quiet, and hopeless.

He was _never_ going to get enough rest at this rate, he thought, as the hall light snapped into dutiful service and Hilde shoved the door open. No words could sooth him, could cool his white-hot scars, so no words came. She simply breathed deeply, coating his name in love as she breathed out, "Oh, Duo," and let him jam his face into her shoulder and clutch.

But, as he slipped into a worn, but harmless insomnia, with a good a friend as anyone could deserve snoring beside him, he couldn't help but let the image of his dream rise again to the top of his mind, the way a new photograph rises through chemicals.

---

"Are you lost?"

Duo tilts his head and grimaces at the little kid. Obnoxious punk he is, simply stumbling in on a productive round of sunbathing and jutting his head out, cutting off a perfectly righteous ray of light. He curls his lip unhappily. This kid will _know_ he's ruined his nap. "Do I _look_ lost to ya?" he growls. "And who asked you, by the way?"

"No one." The kid's face is blurred, but Duo doesn't need such an image. An irritated imagination eagerly fills the blanks. A cute, button-like nose. A mouth that a mother can't help but kiss, a mouth that is rimmed with freckles, tattoos of youth. Eyes still enlarged, rolling around in a skull that has yet to expand and fill in proportionately.

Eyes that are green now, but, as the tiny, subversive grin on his face seems to suggest, may, at any point, change their tune.

He still hasn't left. That means Duo is still in the dark, wishing for the sun to return—and for his annoying, newly acquired sunspot to scram.

"Don't you have parents to return to, kid?" Duo drawls finally, not opening his eyes, which he's sealed shut to maintain his growing disdain.

Heero Yuy answers for him. He is him. Duo will never see him truly as he looked at a tender but deadly age of six, but a pained imagination fills in the blanks with great detail, painting a face coated with adorable baby fat and a tiny, button nose, all teased by wild locks of earth brown. And eyes too large and too agonizingly blue for his face.

"No."

Duo hears the word 'no' until it drives him, screaming, to the filmy surface where war dreams and reality meet and then quickly part, mistrustful of each other.

---

Duo found it was incredibly easy, bordering on inevitable, to avoid the blue-eyed child that was now creeping into his nightmares and even generating a few enthusiastic day-mares. There was simply too much to be done. Teenagers to police, classes to supply, to-do lists to slavishly attend to, and even gardens to be weeded. He probably should have considered hiring a few more employees to help out—but he'd already hired so many, and to add another to the payroll would be exceeding the budget. And that would mean Quatre trying to gently force more money upon him in the sweetest, most hawkish way imaginable.

It was surprising how little he took 'no' for an answer, all while still smiling. 'Poor Trowa,' he thought to himself as he carried a box of books from his office towards the stairwell, intending to store them in the basement and free up more room. Michelle had suggested that they renovate his office a little—make it more 'visit friendly,' as she had described it with a playful smile.

He'd jumped at the opportunity, if only to tear his thoughts away from his newest charge, sitting somewhere in the building with genetic code he should have never had.

He didn't belong _here_. He belonged with—

"Shit," Duo muttered. His cell phone buzzed obnoxiously in his pocket, making his leg vibrate and groan strangely as he walked. "Hate this thing," he mumbled, readjusting the heavy box under one arm, stopping halfway down the stairwell, and tugging it out. The screen glowed and trilled as he opened it. "Yeah, yeah, _bring-a-ling_…"

_Without a Suit_

"Hm, 'Lena?" He said to himself, eagerly thumbing the green button.

'How about dinner this Thursday at our favorite spot? I'm shuttling in to L-2 for a congress. Hope to see you there.'

Duo grinned lopsidedly in the pale, blue-tinged light of the display, musing just how strange it was to receive a text message from the former Queen of the World. It was just as strange as striking the _Create New_ button and confirming a lunch date with said queen with another text message.

'You bet.'

And, after sliding his phone back into his pocket and readjusting his grip on the cardboard box, he hurried down to the storage room and tossed it high on the pile, the prospect of dinner with a good friend lifting his spirit. It'd been unusually heavy for a few days now, and Duo welcomed the change, dashing back up the stairs with his old spunk.

The week passed much more quickly with a goal in mind, and—with a few more amusing exchanges of text messages and a phone call—Duo stood outside a familiar, red-bricked restaurant in his favorite, scuffed jeans, peering out at the street behind his favorite shades. He waited on the corner, scanning both intersecting avenues for his lunch date. Especially for the occasion, he'd braided his hair that morning—a now extremely tedious task with the sheer length that was usually forgone for a messy bun or low ponytail. She'd always been fascinated by it, she'd told him once a few years back. Not that she had ever mentioned it at the time—she'd been far too enamored to ever talk to _him_ in the beginning.

"Waiting long?"

Duo startled slightly at the sound of Relena's voice beside him, but a grin quickly split his mouth as he nudged his sunglasses back onto his nose—then he flushed and pulled them off altogether. "Nope," he answered brightly. "You're never late, anyway, you know."

She smiled back. "Of course not. Don't you know, Duo, that I was once Queen? Royalty's _never_ supposed to be late."

"Really?" he teased with a laugh. "Do tell."

Duo had always felt obnoxiously short in his youth, barely able to match even Quatre in height, plagued by an almost disturbingly thin frame that only served to worsen his tiny appearance. He felt a flash of satisfaction now to see her lift her chin to meet his eyes and even a vague, ungraspable surge of affection at the gentle powder blue of her eyes. She considered him for a moment before tilting her head, one corner of her mouth curling uncharacteristically to the side as she smiled. "You braided your hair today," she observed, her grin growing to show teeth. "That wasn't just for me was it?"

He chuckled, and started leading her inside. "No, I'm meeting my other girlfriend after you, and I want to look good."

She laughed and he felt much better than he had before.

After placing an order for an offensively large steak and fries, punctuated by a stiff round of drinks (which made Relena smile half-knowingly at him), he handed off his menu, and observed the Vice Foreign Minister for a moment. She wore a tight, pink and white-striped sweatshirt that made the honey-wheat of her hair glow bright, a pair of jeans that yawned open at her knees, and little black flats. She'd pulled her hair back today, displaying the shapely face she grown into, shedding her baby fat years ago. Duo thought it was unbearably endearing, crumpling her brow as she spoke, unable to decide between the raspberry or strawberry lemonade when she made daily decisions on how to best run the world, how to best protect peace.

And that was no small thing in the least, Duo knew.

When she'd finally settled on the raspberry and the waitress walked off, she turned to him and let out a relaxed sigh. "So, Duo, how have things been going with the home?"

"Just peachy, actually. I'm in the works of getting a chapel built on the grounds right now."

She looked a little taken aback. "You're going to let your kids get married there?"

He laughed. "No, Lena," he said gently, reaching for a sip of his drink. He couldn't resist the tug of a smirk. "You can _pray_ in a chapel, too—you don't have to hitched to whomever you sit next to."

She puckered her lip. "You know what I meant," she clarified, still slightly grinning. "I don't know all these things like you do, and everyone else." And by everyone else, Duo knew, with that swell of warmth he'd felt at her arrival, meant the pilots. "You're all much more clever than I am, you know that."

"But we don't have your vocabulary."

"Or my girlish figure—not anymore, at least," she shot back.

Duo smirked. He had to hand that one to her. Testosterone had jumped in to combat the stress of war and late blooming and finally given them all the bodies they'd been meant to grow into, and they'd all come to grow taller than her. Being literally crammed into a cockpit and eating travel rations and dehydrated foods during wartime hadn't helped either. Even Quatre had shot up like a weed and now rivaled his boyfriend for sheer height. As he laughed, he could see the little spark of confidence, even smugness he'd seen in her before.

She folded her hands together and rested her chin there, considering him again closely for a moment. "You're really doing alright, Duo? You're not in any financial trouble at all, or overworked?"

"Well, you're never_ under_worked with kids, but you know. And yeah, I'm still set—what with you and Quatre both constantly mothering me about my bank account, I never slip far enough to ever lose any of it," he answered, already signaling towards the waitress that he needed another beer. He'd be walking home today, and that was perfectly fine with him. "Why do you ask? Do I look like I need some more mothering? Quatre has been lagging a little, what with his engagement plans…"

Relena smiled. "You—always trying to change the subject."

Duo did his best to appear perfectly innocent to any subversive tactics. "Whaddiya mean, 'Lena?"

"It's just," she said, her face softening to match the gentle color of her eyes, "you look worn down lately. Are you feeling sick?"

"No," he lied. "Fit as a fiddle. Why—got dark circles under my eyes? Should I be worried about my looks?"

She responded with a dance of laughter and even jealousy in her eyes. "No," she said emphatically. "You definitely shouldn't."

Duo arches his brow. "Oh, was that what I _thought_ it was, Miss Queen?"

"Yes, Duo?"

"Were you hitting on me?" he asks, grinning slyly and leaning in, putting his best baritone roll and best batting-of-the-eyes forward. There was something about her—he just knew she would see instantly through his usual flimsy displays that so often placated Hilde. Perhaps it was just a political skill she'd come to hone. But—for this time, at least—she seemed to fall for it, smiling and falling away from the dangerous topic.

Slipping into her finest mimicry, she bent forward in the same manner, looking so delicately young and powerful at the same time, her hair pulled back, but her neck jangling with over-sized teenage jewelry, that Duo couldn't help breaking his mask for a smirk. She fixated him with a look that could curl a senator's blood in reverence. "Yes," she answered. "Don't you like it?"

He shrugged, giving a grimacing smile. "Sorry, girl—you're just not my type. Otherwise…" He let the sentence fall, and instead watched her face break character and beam with light and warmth.

And for a moment, before they were interrupted by food coming their way, he let his eyes fall closed and indulged himself a moment just drinking in the feeling of friendship. True feelings like this were so fleetingly pure; he couldn't just let it pass him by without a taste.

He felt sincerely happy to be alive at that moment, if only for a little while.

Damn, but this girl had a way of turning dark into light without even really trying. _No wonder he was so crazed over her_, Duo murmured in his thoughts, before snapping to attention as hot steak slid under his nose.

Once they had been pleasantly stuffed with food and wine tasted and rounds emptied and bodies buzzed with pleasure and alcohol, it was time to go their separate ways for the time being. Duo dreaded this part the most, more than arguing with a woman over the bill. Just because she was Queen of the entire World did not mean Duo couldn't be a gentleman and grab it himself.

"Rule breaker," he slung at her, his mischievous grin morphing into a wild, crooked laugh as they came to stop at the corner of the sidewalk. He'd been a little libertine with the booze tonight. "Never can do what's expected of you, can ya? Always gotta revolutionize _some_thin', don't ya?"

"I always expected more of myself than you might think, Duo. I'm just living up to some of those," she answered. She smiled up at him as she swung the striped tail of a scarf around her neck, and he could see her, highlighted white and powerful in the media spotlight, turning the hearts and guns of men with only her careful words. "And yes—you can never do without a little revolution, right?"

"If it means war, Sweet Pea, then I disagree," he drawled.

Her expression was soft and amused, loving, framed by the blurring smears of colors that were the city lights and fading sunset in Duo's vision. She _glowed_. What was her secret to being so sublimely happy? He had to wonder to himself, that tiny knife of jealousy suddenly shaking a stronger emotion to the front of his mind, one he thought he'd successfully drowned in alcohol and buried in the deep embrace of friendship. "Sweat Pea?" she asked. "Oh, Duo, you've really had too much, haven't you?"

"Can't have too much fun," he answered, and she drew him into a hug. It was no where as fierce as the one on a pile of junk where he'd once come so close to death he had memorized the folds of skin in its hand. But it was enough to make Duo's heart swell in pride and affection, which in turn made the wounds in it swell and tear as well, from the strain of love put upon them. When they pulled apart, she smiled at him, considering him for a moment, and began to bustle away, issuing the beginning farewell procedures he barely hears.

There was something about the color of her eyes, the determined shape about them, and the booze liberated his tongue to ask, "Hey 'Lena?"

She stopped moving backwards, toward her parked car, to look attentively at him. "Yes, Duo?" He could feel her listen to his every word with painful consciousness, as the words came so heavily from his mouth, like pulling long-grown, dead roots.

"Have you seen Heero lately?"

"No," was the answer that seems so light, so innocent and easy to utter. Duo felt suddenly like he was an aluminum can under a boot, but she seemed absolutely confident in her answer. "He's been out of touch for a few months now. I've been busy lately with L-5's population problem, so I haven't gotten around to calling him yet." She saw his body sag slightly. "Why?"

"Oh, just wondering," he lied perfectly. "I was thinking about looking him up. Been a while, you know."

Relena lingered there, and Duo felt her rip a few more roots loose when she tilted her head and took another step forward. "Honey, are you sure you're alright? You really do look worn down." When he didn't answer for a moment, inspecting the sidewalk grime with a hazy, distant look instead, she crossed the distance again and held the side of his face, despite the increased reach. "Duo, I mean it. Have you been sleeping well?"

He jolted slightly, but a weary, washed-out grin appeared from the bottom of his barrel of tricks in the hopes of fooling her. She was tiptoeing onto the truth much faster than Hilde—but that's Relena's purpose in life, he reminds himself, to drag the painful truth out and into its rightful place. Her fingers were warm and rosy, and even the frosty, Scandinavian blue of her eyes seemed warm and glowing. He hated that he had to lie to her, but this was a truth that needed to stay thoroughly buried.

"Honey?" he asked, and held her wrist. "It's _you_ who's had too much, I think." Guiding the touch away, he had to resist the temptation to sway towards her, mourning its loss. There was something about her that seemed so comforting—but the power in her eyes reminds him that yes, she is still a shrewd politician, and, believing it would help him, she would turn that savvy towards him.

And bare everything he's worked so hard to ignore and hide.

She remained standing in front of him. The color that scares terrorists and inspires soldiers was burning low in her stare, and Duo felt that protectiveness as warmth, but he could not stand too close. He would burn himself on her, seeking to drive all the cold from him. So he grinned and cracked a joke he barely remembers, hoping it would be enough to fool her.

"You can call me, you know," she reminded him, looping her fingers with him. "I'll listen to whatever you need to say."

He fought a blush of embarrassment by making another, rhythmic, formulized wisecrack. She smiled only minimally. His words were dull and blunted to his own ears, and all he could hear were his thoughts, as they had grown terribly loud and vicious. And he bid her goodbye as politely as he could manage, leaving her on the corner to turn and walk home that night.


	5. Evasion

. Chapter 5 . Evasion

Michelle never let anyone know she's angry until the last, possible moment. The emotion must have been sweetest, at its ripest then, because Duo could swear he saw an ulterior joy flash in her eyes when she stormed in his office and slammed the stack of papers on his desk. The thrill of the hunt excited her, maybe. That _would_ thrill a nun, he supposed. Having been previously occupied with a watermelon lollipop and extensively examining the patterns of his wallpaper, he simply swiveled to glance at her, mildly surprised. Temper tantrums didn't scare him much. If she were upset and armed, then he would worry.

Besides, he just doesn't want this argument today.

Unruffled, he glanced down at the stack, then back up at her.

"Good god, what is this, a cop drama?" he drawled slowly, his eyes falling back to the slammed papers again. Unimpressed, he swiveled his chair to comb the blue-white stripes marking the wall for signs and signals. "You're flushed, even. This is too much like television. I don't believe it."

"You haven't even talked to him, have you?"

"No," Duo answered, still staring, but perfectly uncaring in his voice. "I don't think I will." The candy suddenly felt sour on his lips, and, without looking, he dropped into his empty wastebasket. "Listen, 'chelle—"

"I'm _listening_," she nearly growled.

With a sigh, he turned to face her completely, with respect to their conversation. That's another fascinating characteristic of hers, refusal to argue without eye contact. Fascinating, but also, at the moment, completely aggravating. He settled his elbows on the desk, ignoring the empty bins that serve to cushion her rage as she glanced at them. "I'm not lying to you," he reassured her, feeling her eyes drill into him with a maternal fury.

"I'm sure you're not, Duo. That's not the issue. You're still ignoring that child deliberately."

" 'Ignoring' does imply deliberation, 'chelle."

At this, her lips pucker and twist in barely restrained fury. Briefly, Duo recalls, vividly and hazily at the same time, a similar variation that Sister Helen used to put the faith back into him when he'd cross the line. Perhaps that's why it so effectively silences his sarcasm. "Don't sass." She was just chewing to let loose on him. Duo could hear it in her voice, baying like a pack of hounds. "Tell me why."

Sometimes, Duo was thankful for religion, if only for the fact it reminded her not to forget her Christian tongue and hand.

He shook his head, sighing with a surly puff and pouting lip. "It's not your business, Michelle. Really." He pins her with a look. "Please."

"Okay, Duo," she said, throwing her hands up in frustration, her palms waving white flags. "Maybe it's not. I trust you to that—but that does not mean you have the right to sit here and _neglect_ that little boy, for whatever reason you have. You said you wanted to actually help these kids, each and every one. Whatever happened to that?"

"_Nothing_, Michelle—it's just _personal_."

With more ferocity than knifes being sheathed, she jammed her arms together, folding them across her chest and giving her a much more terrifying appearance than she had already. A bun of red hair and green sweater had never been so unsettling. "So, what? What did this kid ever do to you?" She frowns at him. He hates this conversation _so_ much. "Ever since you laid eye on that kid, you've done nothing but run from him. I know you're not a coward, either."

Duo had always hated being wrong. He absolutely _hated _it now. Unable to stand the truth or anger he knew he rightly deserved, he looked sharply away.

_Well, there's one thing you're probably right about. Probably dead-on, in fact—_

"Fine," he growled. Mostly to strangle that awful voice ringing in his head, throttle it good, but the effect seeped over into Michelle, as well. She blinked and her maternal rage slackened, fortunately. But _un_fortunately, she immediately assumed that the surly little word had been meant for her, and she grinned in satisfaction.

"Good. Then you'll spend some time with him? Maybe take over his tutoring session this afternoon for Marcus?"

Duo blinked again, slipping out of his mind to find her stepping merrily backwards towards the door, and made a gurgling, dumb sound of protest. It was too late, anyway. Victory danced in her green eyes, shone in the curl of red hair that fell loose around her face. "Uh—no, 'chelle! Jesus—I did not—"

"You agreed, Duo!" she reminded him, her toes already leading her out the door. "I'll tell Mark to take the day off. So don't 'forget.' " The grin she left him taunted long after it disappeared, one last glance through the glass framing the door only tearing a little deeper. A few more syllables bounced off the door in vain, and a curse flew, ripping out of his mouth. And, with venom that was mostly terror and a low-down emotion without a name, he pounded a fist into his desk and threw his forehead down to match.

"God damn these nuns," he muttered. Pain flooded his forehead, but only half came from the bruise he created for himself.

---

True to her word, Mark was gone by the time Duo had managed to stop pounding a fist into his forehead and leave his office. He absently rubbed that spot now. A knot burned beneath the bone, itching and pinching at his brain and the precious things there. Only a fraction of an inch away, but impossible to reach. Therefore it was not his fault he could only stand and nurse it with a scowl, staring across the room.

Thankfully, it was still early. No one bothered him.

Classes were held throughout the day at varying intervals, and those who didn't sleep in 'til the last possible moment, which was not many, were more content to chat amongst themselves. They hardly paid Duo any mind. There'd been a concert on last night—their twenty-something mentor would always be second to serious musical discussion. That left him free to instead lean against the doorframe, listening both to the teenagers as they lounged together in the Big Room, and the distant echo of kindergarteners squealing happily over a new game before lunch.

Duo smiled mildly to himself, feeling a sliver of victory settle into him and start to bloom into smugness. He was still doing his job—Mark was supposed to supervise and interact with the kids, and if they didn't want interaction and didn't need supervision, then Michelle couldn't yell at him. It was finally a good feeling, after a week that had seemed like a year, filled by lectures, nightmares, and bone-deep aching that had no cause. He ignored the taunting of his own mind, as it quickly listed all the causes, and instead strolled inside the room.

He busied himself for a few minutes, pulling garbage off the tables and tossing it into the trash. He squinted, picking at a dried stain of _something_ marring one of the tables, feeling awfully mother hen when the impulse would _not_ leave him. So he stopped, squaring his shoulders, and set up for a fight.

Short fingernails set to peeling away what seemed now like a spot of ugly paint and Duo bit down at the edge of his tongue. It would not budge. He scratched a little more, then grimaced at his fingernails. "Why do I feel like this should be easier than _not_ getting blown up?" he muttered to himself, shifting to search for a tool to aid him. "Obviously, it's not…"

It was when he went wandering about the room, looking for something sharper than safety scissors, when he noticed the lump beneath the back desk, originally designated for students to do homework in front of the television but now only an ox for overflow files and supplies.

Duo stopped. His senses lifted, sharpening, and he heard the telltale hush of breathing being bottled cautiously back. He squints, and the sound sharpens. Under the desk, facing away from him. Only the edge of a ratty piece of material is visible, laid across an awkward set of curves.

"What…?" he mumbled to himself.

But as he stood there, at the back of the Big Room with the mid-morning sun pouring down on him, he could not bring himself to walk around and look. The curiosity had died. Instinct told him he would not want to know what he'd heard, and—despite the furious image of Michelle's face, puckered into a frown haunting him—he listened to it. He returned to the dried stain and peeled it off with his fingernails instead.

Michelle was furious with him again, but she'd already spent all the fun of playing the 'angry cop,' as Duo referred to it, and needed a new way to channel that rage. This time, it manifested as 'disappointed mother.'

"Have you worked with him?" Nice of her, slinging the unfulfilled duty aspect in his face as well. Not that the piercing eyes of shame weren't enough to punch a little hole in him, worsening the day in an already painful life. When he didn't respond and the blank expression on his face answered for him, her disappointment welled. "Did you even speak to him?"

He didn't smile, but there was something painfully amusing about all this. "No."

This time, there was no lecture. Mostly, she just let the color of her eyes tell him exactly how low he's steeping—an orphan abandoning an orphaned child—and let him make his own decision about it. Not that their nameless son wouldn't get attention from many different people in his newly extended family, but Duo had a responsibility to him as well.

She simply walked around him and continued on her way, a box of newly donated dishes to be stacked in the kitchen. "You're a grown man, Duo. Do what you want, then."

He watched her go, then just slung his face into a grimace and stalked off. It was a shame to despise such a well-earned victory so soon after earning it.

---

"Hey, Hild," Duo called as he stepped inside the house. Already sliding out of his jacket, a swing of his hips shut the door.

Willfully ignoring the closet, and all the painful reminders of authority it strangely brings him, he tossed his coat onto the back of the couch, knowing full well he'll get bitched at later to put it away properly. Not that he worries. He'll find some way to shirk it—he's had plenty of practice at work lately at dodging his problems.

Boots fell loosely to the floor as he tugged his hair out from the ponytail. Sometimes he's honestly surprised the weight of it doesn't rip a portion of his scalp from his skull—and sometimes he's amazed he can keep himself from ripping it out himself. At the end of a long day, the back of his head feels like it's peeling agonizingly away, tugged away by stress and the threads of his hair.

He rolled his shoulders around two familiar knots and muttered to himself, "Gotta cut this damn hair," knowing full well he'll do no such thing. He rubbed absently at his scalp and trudged along into the kitchen. "Hey, Hild," he repeated again.

The dark-haired girl was eagerly cradling the phone to the side of her face, collected up into the stool beside the monitor on the wall, knees resting on the peninsula counter. Eyes the color of the dark sea blinked at him, grinning quickly, and she cupped the mouth of the phone close with her hand. She was highly pink today—pink sweatshirt and a white pair of pants, punctuated by a loud pair of purple and pink striped socks. "Hi, Duo," she greeted, watching her good friend and roommate wave in response before returning to her conversation. Duo watched her toes clench and flutter out of the corner of his eye, then snorted.

He dove immediately for the refrigerator. And, seeing how Hilde was already preoccupied and he'd gotten away with two faux pas, he snatched up the milk and drank from it. Hilde chatted on, oblivious. Duo licked his lips, wiped his mouth clean on his sleeve, and put it back. Not a thing. Duo stood behind the door, with thin waves of cold pouring out over his toes, and watched her for a few moments. But it wasn't until he bent down to raid the pickle jar—no fork needed, only brave fingers—that he noticed the raspberry spot on the counter.

The '_date'_ hat.

He continued to stare at her innocently, biting into the comforting vinegar of a pickle or six, considering the rich pink-red beret and what it meant. The slight blush of joy and twirling fingers and toes were definitely connected—but Duo still had no idea of just who this new interest was. Lacking anything better to do, he remained there, watching their conversation, only hearing the dull hum of a voice on the other line.

Oddly enough, Hilde only seemed annoyed by his probing for a moment. She looked pointedly over at him, still cradling the phone close, then said, "Yes," in the most un-Hilde like way. Afterwards, she continued giggling and talking onward like he wasn't there at all. Duo scowled over his pickle.

"Who are you talking to?" he asked, putting the pickle jar back. It was an easy answer. He strolled casually off, still watching her as he walked away. The only response he got was a brief, silent shake of the head. Instead, she grinned into the phone. "Really? How was that?" she bid of her precious conversationalist, completely ignoring Duo.

He didn't like that. So he crept up behind her, solider silent. "Uh-huh," she said, oblivious. Duo stood behind her and heard the gentle curl of a male voice on the other side. "Has he kissed you yet, hm? Or are ya still chasing him down?" he purred.

"Duo!" She whirled at him, nearly scandalized. Immediately, she clapped her hand over the telephone, and spun around in the stool seat, pushing him away with a pink-purple-striped foot. He took it in a very brotherly fashion and swat at her in revenge. "Hey, hey, can't a girl get her privacy?"

"I just want to know who's hittin' on my lil' sis', that's all, Hil," he drawled, backing away with his palms in the air and grin flashing. "I'm not butting in on your territory!"

"God, Duo—leave me alone!"

The grin was irresistible, and it forced him to continue. "He's really _hot_ isn't he?" he teased. "That's why you're red—and why you've got that hat again."

Hilde had finally given in to the fight, pulling the receiver away from her mouth, safely cupped, and shot him a withering glare. "Ooh. Patented Yuy death stare, I see. Nice move," he teased her, and she burst out again at him.

"Go tinker with something, for god's sake!"

"Everything in the house is fixed, Hil," he razzed her. Feeling the victory coming to settle on his side, he began to meander backwards, pulling away from the fight just when she would be most frustrated by it.

She scrunched her nose at him in annoyance. "Do you want me to _break _something, then?"

"Fine! I know when I'm the third wheel…" He even bowed to her in a show of gentility. It only served to further infuriate her, and she twirled back around, knees budged underneath the counter, holding her forehead, and sighing into the phone. "I'm sorry. You know how he gets…" Duo laughed and trotted up the stairs to his room, not really registering what Hilde had meant by that.


	6. Breaker

. Chapter 6 . Breaker

Duo returned to work the next day nursing a headache that should have rightfully split his skull and spared him the agony. Its inexplicable arrival only served to stress him further, and in turn cranked the volume on the pain.

He nursed his head by frowning at some distant point ahead of him as if he were trying to kill something with his thoughts. Needless to say, the home in a state of miniature crisis was the last thing he wanted at this point. But when even sweet-hearted and soft-voiced Michelle was snapping loud enough to be heard from the front door, Duo knew what waited for him through the door was not going to be sunshine. He immediately was directed by Mark to go to the Big Room before the assistant loped off after Strawberry, a red-headed boy who had come from Duo's old neighborhood and currently thought it was best not to wear clothing as he walked about. He dropped his jacket into the chair at the front desk and headed towards the sound of the commotion.

Luckily, as early as it was, most of the orphans were sleeping or lazily wandering in search of breakfast and friends. By the firm, but shrill echo of Michelle's voice coming up the corridor, he knew she was definitely not enjoying the morning, either.

He pushed past the small group of observers with their sleepy ears pricked to Michelle's amusingly rare outbursts, and pushed open the glass door. Judging by Marcus' expression, which had been pointedly void of frightened pity, she was not upset with _him_. His simple aggravation with a crummy start to the day quickly became cold dread in his stomach when he saw that the two children—who had just been fighting, presumably, by Michelle's cross face—were Cinderblock and the nameless blue-eyed boy. Each was held captive by a firm hand, arms wrenched high above their heads as if proclaiming their own guilt. Cinderblock, looking rather surly and muttering to himself silently, also nursed a nasty split lip.

The blue-eyed child only stared at the floor beneath bowed head. He'd seen that messy hair whorl before.

Michelle turned to look at him, and his hair rose on the back of his neck. Okay, so she _was_ a little mad at him, too.

"Goddamn it, Duo—I _told_ you," was all she growled before letting go of the nameless child and dragging Cinderblock past him. Her outrage wouldn't even allow her to look him in the eye as she blew past. "You talk to him. Neither of you are coming out of here until you do."

The sound of a curse coming from a mouth so normally sweet and gentle knocked Duo off-kilter for a moment, blinking dumbly. That, paired with an infuriated and silent glare, caused him to hesitate, giving Michelle the time to storm out of the door, Cin in hand, and slammed the door.

Duo spun about as he heard the door shut and a menacing click that could have only meant a lock being turned. "What? Wait—wait a minute! 'chelle!"

His shocked expression did nothing to stop her—she blew past the crowd of sneering teenagers with the fury of a mother scorned, dragging Cinderblock along with her to a round of punishment by lecture in her office. Duo could hear the snickers and unison cries of 'Ooooh,' drifting through the glass door. Both towards Cinderblock and towards their headmaster of sorts, who had just been punished by his assistant as if he were only five years old. And there was no use in asking them either.

None were going to risk Michelle's sudden and swift retribution.

That left him here, with those eyes.

Somehow, Duo almost wished for the cramped metal walls of the Gundam's mechanical womb. The controls, the displays, the g-forces, as oppressive and overwhelming as they often were, were familiar, were simple. Emotional complexity was never a question with the art of mechanics and electronics. That pain was reserved for all places outside that womb, and without it, Duo had suddenly become completely vulnerable to the painful teeth of life again. No clearer was that fact than at this moment.

He turned around, pushing all thoughts of days past from his head. They caused all this trouble in the first place.

The nameless child stood rooted to the spot Michelle had left him and rubbed at his wrist like she'd left a rash of guilt curled around it. His head hung so low, ashamed, that he could see the peek of scalp where his uncombed brown hair sprouted at the crown of his head. His feet pointed towards each other, his fingers worried at his skin until they were white from pressure. His knuckles were scuffed a bright pink Duo knew well. It was obvious that there had been a fight, but his clothes were wrinkled in a way that did not come from just roughhousing.

Luckily, the noise of the teenage crowd outside was disappearing as Marcus came by, apparently having successfully wrangled Strawberry into clothing, and ushered them off to classes. Duo gave the hallway a glance, then turned back to look at the nameless child. His neck throbbed as a knot formed at the nape, hard and pulled tight. He did his best to mask the sigh of exhaustion that came as he stepped cautiously forward.

No thoughts. No thoughts.

Not even of how that same determined face had remained turned toward the hot burn of healing metal all during the night while Duo threw his hand in the air, unable to comprehend all those years ago. Not even of how that face might have come to be here now, bowed to the floor, nursing guilt and pain, greatly different but very much the same.

Duo approached the child like he would any other just suffered an upsetting experience. In the years of running the home, he'd nursed scuffed knees and egos alike. He crouched down in front of him and offered a gentle morning smile in the hopes it might get the kid to open up. Right now, the almost violent wringing of his fingers worried Duo.

"Hey, buddy," he said warmly, "are you alright?"

The kid shook his head with a jerkiness only tears brought and Duo's smile spread in honesty. Suddenly, that cold sense of dread was gone and his paternal love was back in full swing, that sense that had driven him to form the home in the first place—that motivation Michelle had seen absent from work lately. He began to wonder why he'd worked so hard to avoid this kid and instinctively reached out to touch his arm, the universal spot of first comfort.

"That's fine," Duo said. "It's okay to not be alright."

The kid made a small, snuffling noise of begrudging acknowledgement, while still studying the carpet with dedicated shame.

He reached back for a small chair to sit in and pulled it beneath him. The gentle smile was growing. "I promise not to be as terrifying as Ms. Michelle today," he promised, feeling a tiny amount of tension leave that tiny frame at the touch. "Do you want to tell ol' Duo what happened?"

Again, he looked up and Duo nearly fell into the blue eyes that greeted him, laced with knots of shame. He readjusted, instead smiling around his nerves, and pushed through. He smothered the urge to compare that face to ones he knew, and instead translated his anxiety into his thumb gently rubbing his tiny elbow. When the nameless child's head hung lower and his eyes sought out the tiles, Duo smiled gently and craned his head in unison. It was then he wished he knew his name.

It was much easier to comfort a child with a name to speak.

He patted his arm and then let his hand fall away. "Okay, okay. You don't have to answer." That seemed to surprise the child, cautiously lifting his chin from his chest. Still he hid beneath a shy curtain of bangs, but it was improvement.

"Listen, I've got a little story to tell you." A slightly raised eyebrow and quirked mouth greeted the child as he lifted his head fully, judging his reaction. Duo took the faint glow of light returning to his expression as an invitation to continue. "When I was about your age, someone told me I stunk like a sewer. I was so mad I couldn't even see straight, and I've never punched anyone harder in my entire life."

A little puff of laughter was inevitable when the child's eyes pop scandalously wide. He wondered just how wide they might go, if he included the fact he'd continued to beat the offending kids until he'd broken four bones and sent them to the hospital—a fact he'd neatly neglected.

"Yeah," he said, grinning and nodding, "I did. Broke a knuckle, even." He lifted his hand to display the fine white lacings of scars riding over his fingers. The original scar had long since faded. Not that it mattered—scars from war were far more impressive, and the child was far too young to realize the difference.

He anxiously put his own knuckles to his lips and piped up around them. "Was your mom angry at you?"

Duo smiled.

"I'm just like you, bud," he said. He reached out and poked him affectionately in the shoulder. "I grew up in an orphanage. I lost both my parents long before I can remember. Luckily, there was a priest and a nun kind enough to take me in before I caused too much trouble. But when Sister Helen caught me, she was so upset with me I thought I would never live to see the next morning."

"Like her," the kid elaborated, fingering the air at his side where Michelle had stood.

Duo nodded and readjusted as his joints complained from crouching too long, coming to kneel and rest back on his heels. "But you know what happened then?"

The kid shook his head, still raptly watching him over his hands.

"Sister Helen gave me a hug and told me to go apologize. And I did." Again, he omitted a few minor details, including the fact the bullying kids had enacted revenge a few days after his half-sincere apology, and he did not fight back. He hid a grimace of recalled pain behind a quick smile. "It can be really hard to do, but it's very important to apologize. You understand?"

He glanced away, weighed by guilt but remembering his fury, his embarrassment. Then, letting out a tiny nasal sigh, he met Duo's eye again and nodded. "Yeah," he mumbled cautiously.

Duo tilted his head then, the opposite corner of his mouth curling in affection. "You sure you don't want to tell me your name, bud?"

Again, he looked away. But it wasn't guilt weighing him down, only remembrance. This time, though, he couldn't tell what memory was plaguing him. Instinctively, he reached out and ruffled his hair in a way Sister Helen had only done once, after calling him inside for dinner. When he had shaken off his own memory, the kid was slouching, eyes down, almost shrinking beneath his own.

_Probably his parents,_ Duo thought, and could only draw him out of it with another affectionate, brotherly tap on the shoulder.

"Listen, I'll tell you what."

"What?" The kid asked immediately, blue eyes bright.

Duo smiled as he knelt down, relieving his joints—not as limber and fifteen years old as they had once been—and lifted a finger. "I was gonna tell you 'what,' you impatient little Rocky," he drawled, poking him with a grin. "I never had a name. Still can't remember to this day if I was a Tom, a Greg, or even a Mortimer." He hesitated, and smirked. "Maybe it's a good thing I didn't know."

The kid's slack, worried mouth softened, but did not yet smile.

"Those who didn't know their names, we would pick our names instead. Going through life without homes was hard enough. I was going to name myself Pick at one point."

"Why?"

Duo grinned fiercely, and lifted a small picture, as creased as an elderly man's brow. "Because I was a pretty good pickpocket. Still am."

The kid gaped. No doubt about it—recognition flashed through his eyes and his tiny fingers reached desperately out for it. In the photo, the kid was wrapped happily around a Labrador puppy, exuberant and barely clinging to the bundle of paws and energy They melded around the frayed edges and folded it up and out of sight almost as quickly as Duo had lifted it from his pocket. There it was returned, a haven of safety in a life on the streets, and the kid turned his bottomless blues towards Duo, unsure if he should be impressed or betrayed.

"Don't worry—it was just for effect," Duo reassured him. Michelle and Helen alike would probably strike him across the back of the head for raiding a child's pockets and effectively stealing a beloved keepsake, but neither were there to see, and neither had ever spent their childhood on the streets. Things happened, they were traumatic, but they thickened your skin in the same necessary way food filled your belly. The kid seemed to understand this vague and cruel point of the world to some extent, and he continued to watch Duo with caution and interest, rather than look away in anger or pain.

"I think I would have named you Breaker."

The kid blinked at him, then seemed to stand a bit straighter, staring intently. " 'Breaker?' "

"Yeah. Only the toughest, smartest kids I knew ever got the name Breaker. See, we'd pick our names, but the rest of the kids had to agree on it. Everyone wanted to be named King, but no one ever let him." Suddenly, Duo felt himself smiling again, mirroring the slight curl of the kid's mouth. "Breakers were quick, good fighters, smarter than anyone, and they always got away with everything. You seem like one to me. And if you don't want to tell me your real name, you could have that one instead."

"I could?" He glanced around the room, even peering over his shoulder to see if any unwanted eyes still watched from across the glass. "But doesn't everyone have to agree?"

"Nope, just me." Duo jabbed a thumb toward his chest. "Only street rat here. Only kids who have been on the streets can name other kids from the streets. Call it an exclusive club, but that's the rule."

The kid nodded, his gaze settling on the carpet for a moment. But he was still half-smiling. "Okay," he said. Duo was surprised to see that promising hint of happiness suddenly drop away from his mouth, his expression filling with a sad curiosity usually only known in adulthood. Blue eyes again locked on his and he couldn't resist it for a moment.

_("Do a favor for me, Duo.")_

"Why did you pick your name?"

Duo stared back at him, his own smile startled off his face. The intensity of his eyes, the depth of tension and sadness in a body so young and a life so freshly begun honestly scared him. The kid stared up at him, waiting for the explanation, for Duo's paralyzed mouth to again reassure him, until Michelle tapping at the glass door before she entered the room interrupted them.

"How's it going?"

She settled against the door as it swung shut. The firm stance of her feet, the weary but even shape of her mouth, and her arms folded across her chest all denoted she was willing to wait until the end of time, should it take Duo that long to resolve his ridiculous fear. Even the copper red of her hair seemed to shine duller, preserving its fire for the long distance haul. Without an immediate response—only two pairs of eyes latched on her silently, half-surprised, and half worried she was there to eat them alive—she arched an expectant brow at Duo.

The pilot recovered quickly. He shifted a little to face her more and smiled his most victorious smile. "Oh, just fine, actually. Breaker and me were just talking. You know, boy stuff."

The kid snapped his head back around, staring at him. Michelle did the same, the other brow jumping to match the other's startled height. "Breaker?"

Duo flashed the kid a wink and the newly appointed Breaker seemed to slip comfortably into the new name—he issued his first sincere smile under the name.


	7. Symbols

. Chapter Seven . Symbols .

Hilde strolled into the living room that night, presumably drawn by the canned laughter of a low-rated sitcom. In fact, she was, but the rhythm of overly written situations and frequent commercials did not draw her from a bath and a book. Duo watching situation comedies meant only one thing these days. She'd heard the front door open and close while soaking, and, as soon as finishing the next chapter, had got up and got dressed. Another late night had kept him at work, though he'd been too busy to explain when he'd called hours before. He'd spoken loudly and distractedly into the phone, muttering offstage to some troublesome child, explaining only that he'd be late coming home.

She wasn't surprised to see the leftover take-out on the counter thoroughly pillaged. She turned over the emptied boxes with a smile and followed the smell of greasy Chinese to the living room. Entering from the kitchen, only the tip of Duo's braided tail hanging over the couch was visible, stuck from when he'd likely slid over the back, _lo mein_ already dangling from his lips and fingers reaching for the remote.

Brushing the excess water from her hair, which had grown in violet-black waves past the bottom of her ears, she leaned over the back of the couch. Duo glanced up at her and flashed her a smile. "Hey, Hil," he said, turning back to the screen. "How was your day?"

Not surprisingly, he was just as she'd imagined, his button down shirt opened to reveal the rock and roll t-shirt beneath, already spotting a few errant spots of grease. She returned the smile when he'd already turned away, bending forward and resting on the couch.

"Not bad. McGregor called to say he's got another patch of material for us to process outside the West End. He's going to call when they're done collecting all of it," she said. He made a pleased noise through his food, but his eyes remained plastered to the badly written, mildly acted show.

That confused her more. An upset Duo avoided foods at all cost, and instead buried himself in bad, sentimental television. This odd hybrid must either indicate a schizophrenic break—unlikely if he hadn't already succumbed to one—or another thing entirely.

Duo watched her wardrobe for an emotional insight; his choices in television were her signs.

He forced down a swallow of food to talk. The show quickly faded to commercial, and he could afford to turn to look at her. "Good, good," he said. "So, pretty productive for there being no war and killing." He broke into a grin and turned back towards the television again.

Hilde put down the hairbrush then and stared at him. He continued to shovel the rubbery noodles into his mouth with a fork for ultimate food intake speed with no notice. "Yeah, I suppose."

If there were ever one subject he never joked about—honestly, without laughter masking some deeper and less humorous thought—it was war. But apparently, tonight syndication trumped socializing properly, and Hilde wandered into the adjoining kitchen to scrounge up a drink. "What kept you so long at the home today?" she called out.

"Oh, Cinderblock managed to get his head stuck between the railings just as I was about to leave. That was _after_ I had to go through all the bills for this month. Then I stayed to help wash out the butter we used to squeeze him out, and had to check on to Breaker before he went to bed."

She peered out at the couch at this with a mild smirk. "Breaker? What, did he need help tucking himself in, or just someone to drive him home from the bar?"

Duo hesitated a moment, before sitting up and staring oddly at her. "What are you talking about?"

"New guy you met?"

"No, no, he's a kid at the home, Hil!" he answered, mildly scandalized. "You've been wearing that hat far too much lately. Warping all your thoughts." He grinned, already recovering from accidental accusations of pedophile tendencies and jabbing the fork in her direction.

She poured herself a glass of orange juice and shut the fridge door with a swing of her hips. "And you haven't worn anything _like_it for far too _long_, Duo." She nudged his feet, silently asking for her portion of the couch. Amazingly, the show had flickered back on, but he remained actively engaged with her. She reminded herself to store that fact away when she would worry about him later that night, as she'd begun to make a nightly habit of doing.

"And exactly what do you mean by that?"

"It's been a while since you put yourself back into the scene. I think it'd might do you some good to find someone new."

"Oh, really. That's what you think?" He lifted an eyebrow at her, but nothing worse. Again, it nearly stunned her.

Joking about war _and_ not immediately butting her out of a discussion on his love life? If she hadn't been sitting already, she probably would have found her knees giving way in shock. She attempted to smother any shocked expression that might have shown through in the hopes that Duo wouldn't shy away from talking about it.

"You haven't seen anyone in months."

"Neither have _you_," Duo reminded her, but she quickly recognized the devilish color in his eyes, brightened by the television's glow. He wanted to trick her into admitting she was dating someone herself.

"No, no—that won't work on me, Duo."

"Aw, come on," he drawled, wagging a finger at her. "You're not going to be able to hide it from me forever."

"If I actually _was_ dating someone, no, I wouldn't. But since I'm not, I can hide the boyfriend I don't have all I want."

"Who were you talking to on the phone, then?"

"It wasn't a hooker, if that's your next joke."

"Damn." Duo laughed at himself and again shifted his attention to the television, absorbing what little plot and development offered with a distant but content stare. Confusing as that was to Hilde, interfering with all clear reads of his state of mind, he didn't seem to mind interrupting the television to ask about her other exploits of the day. She decided a confusingly content Duo was far superior to mysterious and moping Duo and nestled underneath his outstretched legs on the couch to answer.

---

Michelle lifted the pot from the burner and managed to navigate through a monstrous cloud of stream to pour it out. The greasy-yellow of spaghetti noodles lurched out and splashed into the strainer, the cloud of steam swelling up in an almost aggravated puff of heat. She rubbed the moisture off her face with the red oven mitt, and stood there, drawing in a deep breath of cool air. It wasn't long, though, before someone was calling into the kitchen, asking if lunch was ready.

The long morning was quickly looking to become a long afternoon. Their cook had come down sick early that morning—either with a mild kiss of the flu, or a decently bad hangover, neither of which really mattered to her; no way either affliction was getting near the kids' food.

She'd rolled her sleeves to her shoulders, her pant legs to her knees, and wrangled her hair up into a bun. The steam of the kitchen had loosened it, and the strands that had managed to shake free had gone frizzy from the temperature in the kitchen.

Cooking for herself was sometimes a challenge. Attempting to feed a home full of kids and teenagers was a '_whole 'nother ball game_,' as Duo would have put it.

Not surprisingly, it was Cinderblock who had called out, sticking his head into the kitchen as if he were crossing the Alsace-Lorraine border.

She supposed she'd been a bit harsh with him the day before, but Duo neglecting the new child with an appalling dedication had pushed her to snap out when provoked. There was enough work to be done without creating problems like that. She smiled through the heat and waved him inside.

"Almost. Come in and help me?"

"Okay," Cin answered and walked in, but not before looking behind him and relaying the message to the hungry crowd that had no doubt followed him. To coat the massive amount of food, they needed an equally massive amount of sauce. She pointed towards the stove tops while wiping the back of her neck with a hand towel. "Uh, could you check the meat sauce for me? Is it still simmering?"

He had to stand on his tip toes to do so, but he checked. "Yep." He toyed with the stirring spoon, moving it around. "I think."

"Don't burn yourself," she warned him, as the kitchen phone rang.

She was surprised with the amount she'd produced on her own while still fielding work calls, her cell phone clenched between her shoulder and her ear. That sat idle in her pocket and she gave Cinderblock one more cautious glance before answering.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Michelle?"

"Hilde?"

"Yep. Do you need some help?"

The redhead let out a bright, relieved sigh. "Definitely. Where are you?"

"Just upstairs," she answered, laughing gently at Michelle's sense of urgency. "I thought you'd been in your office doing work again."

"I've just moved it into the kitchen, and made lunch along with it." When Cinderblock called her name, she wandered over and inspected the sauce herself. She nodded to him. "Is Duo with the kids?"

"That's where he said he was going," Hilde said.

"From your choice of words, I take it you heard about what he was doing this past week, then."

"Yeah. Actually, that's partially why I came. I want to talk to you about him. He's been acting strange lately and I don't know why."

"It's not just me then, either." Michelle stopped and leaned against the wall beside the receiver, watching the coiled cord swing mutely. "Well, come down to the kitchen and I'll be glad to."

"Okay."

"Thanks."

Michelle turned back to her work, only having to slap Cinderblock's fingers away from the sauce, too eager_not_ to taste it once. The day was finally, _finally_ looking up.

---

"Breaker, my man!"

The child lifted his head from where it'd been hanging in intense scrutiny over the tabletop, pencil pinched in one hand, the other hand pressing the paper flat and into total submission. He glanced pointedly across the room at the sound of his new name. Duo's figure was easy enough to spot amongst the children and teens across the length of the Big Room, and he was grinning brightly. Breaker couldn't help but shyly smile in response.

"What'cha up to?" he asked as he pulled up a chair, spun it neatly, backrest facing the table, and slumped into coolly. Perhaps Michelle and Hilde—and even Relena now-a-days—were impervious to all his jaunty displays and his boyish charm, but at least therewas _one_ person who could still appreciate it. He watched Breaker's smile broaden, the eyes crinkling shut happily, and felt half the world's weight suddenly gone.

He held up the paper he'd been laboring over and said, "Look!"

Duo blinked up at him momentarily, then down to the paper outstretched to him and took it to examine. He blinked again and smiled with an amazed puff of air. "You _wrote_ your name? Breaker, that's—that's wonderful!" he grinned.

The other half of that weight was gone, somehow relieved by nothing more than seven half-crooked letters in red crayon on pre-lined paper, where peace and money and friends had somehow failed him. He looked back into Breaker's blue-blue eyes, and didn't even feel the temptation to wonder if his father was alive—only the urge to reach out and ruffle his hair.

"Thanks," he mumbled beneath Duo's hand, smiling to the floor as blood flooded his face.

"This is great!" he continued, despite the happily embarrassed motion. He almost spoke to himself, staring raptly at the letters, the crooked lines that met nervously but correctly nearly strangling him with joy. "To write at your age… you're one sharp kid, Breaker. Never doubted you for a second."

Breaker looked up at him silently. When Duo glanced up at him, still grinning dumbly with pride, he smiled in return, but with less enthusiasm and twice the color in his face.

Duo reached out for his hand, still clutching the paper in the other hand, and tugged. Tugged, like a much younger being, eager to head outside and enjoy summer sun. "Come on, let's go put this up in my office, how 'bout?"

"Really?"

"If you want me too," Duo added, shooting him a cautious look, almost plaintive, puppy-eyed. "I mean, you are the author. You own it, in essence. I need your_explicit_ permission."

"You real' like it?"

"Does a brown cow make chocolate milk?"

Breaker squinted. "I don't think so…"

Duo laughed, and drew a few curious looks from about the room at the bright, loud sound. "No pulling the wool over _you_," he said, and clapped him on the shoulder, making them equal in all ways that moment in Duo's opinion.

They left the room with Breaker sitting neatly on his shoulders and Duo's braid wrapped around him like a seatbelt. Chatting brightly and freely—not knowing how many of his words the younger knew and how many he didn't, but completely sure he would understand and giggle appreciatively—Duo held the paper in front of him, still beaming with pride, and Breaker touched the top his head as they walked, every moment spent with each other becoming more and more exclusively theirs.


End file.
